Dark Chocolate Demise Read online

  Joe had walked away from Mel to keep her from being a target. To Mel it still felt like rejection. She didn’t handle that sort of thing well and in the past three months had gained fifteen pounds from comfort eating. For that alone, she hoped Joe brought his mobster to justice.

  “Come on, ladies, it’s ‘time to nut up or shut up,’” Tate said as he dropped an arm around Mel’s and Angie’s shoulders and began to herd them to the van.

  “Zombieland,” Mel and Angie said, identifying the movie together.

  The swapping of movie quotes was one of the foundations of their friendship. Mel and Tate had met first in middle school, but then Angie had come along and the three friends had spent weekends in Tate’s parents’ home theater, watching old movies and eating junk food. Ever since, they had played a game of stumping one another with movie quotes.

  These days just the memory of those happier times made Mel glum. Why did it seem like everything was so difficult now?

  “Chin up, Undead Chef,” Tate said. “We’re going to go sell cupcakes to the shambling masses and make an arm and a leg in profit.”

  “Ba dum dum,” Angie made the sound of a drummer’s rim shot.

  Mel rolled her eyes. “I guess that’s better than making a killing.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Angie said with a laugh.

  “Aw, come on. It’s a zombie walk finished off with an outdoor big screen showing of Night of the Living Dead,” Tate said. “How could we have anything but a good time?”

  Two

  Because the cupcake van was packed to bursting with food, there was no way to wedge Angie’s poufy meringue of a dress into the back. She and Mel opted to walk the half block to the Civic Center, the park in Old Town Scottsdale where the zombie walk would end and the party would begin.

  As Mel and Angie strolled through the bakery’s neighborhood, Mel hoped they didn’t scare any small children in their ghoulish getups. She did not want to be responsible for anyone’s nightmares.

  As they passed the tattoo parlor on the corner, Mick the owner poked his head out of the doorway. Standing six feet four and covered in ink right to the top of his shaved head, which sported a rising phoenix, he was fearsome to behold.

  “Well, look what crawled up from the netherworld,” he said. “And here I thought today was going to be ordinary.”

  Mel glanced at the metal implants on Mick’s forehead that made him look like he was about to sprout horns. Did the man even know the meaning of the word ordinary?

  “It’s my new look,” Angie said as she twirled, giving him an eyeful of her axe in the back. “What do you think?”

  “Totally hot. If you weren’t spoken for, I’d ask you to the opera tonight.”

  “You mean you’re going to miss the zombie walk?” Mel asked. She would have thought it was right up Mick’s alley, literally.

  “Sorry,” Mick said with a shrug. “La Bohème is tonight. You know how I feel about my man Puccini.”

  Mel nodded. Mick was an onion with a lot of layers. Despite his outwardly scary appearance, he was a season ticket holder to the Arizona Opera, and she knew from his weekly visits to the bakery that he had a weakness for coconut cupcakes.

  “Oh, ew!” Mel turned around to see a young woman in a charcoal gray skirt and suit jacket over a black blouse and black tights, staring at her and Angie in revulsion. Frances Kelly, CPA, was new to the neighborhood as she had just rented office space above Mick’s tattoo parlor. Frances twirled her finger at them. “That is so wrong and on so many levels.”

  “Frances, I’m hurt,” Angie said. “I can’t believe you don’t like my outfit.”

  “Flirting with damnation is not my idea of a good time,” Frances said with a sniff. Frances had a very rigid religious code that as far as Mel had been able to determine meant no fun of any kind ever.

  Mel rolled her eyes at Mick, who grinned in return.

  “Come on, Frankie, lighten up,” he teased the young woman. “A zombie walk is good, clean fun. No harm, no foul.”

  “It’s Frances, Mr. Donnelly; you would do well to remember that,” she snapped and jerked on the lapels of her jacket while hoisting her messenger bag up onto her shoulder. “And for your information, playing with Satan is always harmful. I’ll pray for you all.”

  With that she strode past them to the stairs on the side of the building, which led to her office above. When they heard the door shut behind her, Angie turned to Mick with a perplexed expression.

  “Explain to me how that”—she paused to point up—“ended up renting space from you.”

  Mick shrugged. “Price and location. Besides, I think she likes me.”

  “Oh, yeah, I saw a glimmer of that mixed in with her scathing contempt,” Mel said. “Not.”

  Mick laughed. “Well, she’s not indifferent to me, so we have a starting place.”

  Mel and Angie waved good-bye as Mick ducked back into his shop.

  “Is it just me or is he completely deluded?” Angie asked.

  “It’s not you,” Mel said. “For reasons unknown to me, men do not seem to suffer the same self-esteem issues as women do. I mean, have you ever noticed that old, fat bald guys tend to go for young, skinny, pretty girls? What’s up with that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they see themselves as they were when they were young,” Angie said.

  “See? Deluded,” Mel said. “Not unlike our inked-up friend there thinking he stands a chance with the poster girl of prim and proper.”

  “Agreed,” Angie said. “Let me just say if Tate ever throws me over because I’ve gained a few pounds or let my hair go gray while he did the same, why I’d . . .”

  “What?” Mel prompted her.

  “Lose the weight, dye my hair, find the youngest, hottest man in town, and make Tate regret his stupidity until he draws his last breath.”

  “Wow,” Mel said. “You’re kind of scaring me right now.”

  Angie gave her a sidelong glance as they crossed the street. “You are not the one who needs to be scared.”

  “Noted.”

  As they entered the park, Mel could see other vendors setting up their booths for the zombie walk. She was relieved that most of them had dressed up as well, making her feel much less conspicuous than she had under Frances’s censorious gaze.

  It was a perfect March day in Arizona with a warm sun and a cool breeze, making it the sort of day that demanded it be spent outside.

  “Oh, check them out.” Angie nudged Mel with her elbow and pointed to a gruesome twosome.

  Mel felt her jaw drop. The woman was dressed like a dominatrix, and she led her zombie man around by a chain around his neck.

  “I thought this was a family event,” she said.

  Angie shrugged. They watched as the man moaned and shambled past them while the woman strutted on stiletto boots that went all the way up to mid-thigh. She smacked a riding crop against her thigh as if just itching to use it.

  “That’s fifty shades of seriously wrong,” Mel said and Angie laughed.

  “Halt!” A man in a black T-shirt with a bright yellow star on it, black fatigues, and black combat boots jumped in front of them. He assumed a fighter stance and was carrying what looked like a very large semiautomatic weapon.

  Mel jumped. “What? What did we do?”

  “I’m with the Department of Zombie Defense,” the man barked. “And you look undead to me.”

  “Who? Us?” Angie asked. She looked like she was trying not to laugh as she played along. “No, no, we’re very much alive.”

  “Yep, we have all of our body parts,” Mel said. “See?”

  She and Angie shook their arms and legs to prove that all their parts were still attached.

  The man gave them a dubious look. “All right. I’ll let you pass this time, but you may want to get some sun. You’re looking a li
ttle pale.”

  “Will do,” Mel promised. She and Angie hurried around him to go meet the cupcake van, which was slowly rolling towards them.

  “And probably you should get that axe in your back looked at,” the guy yelled.

  Angie snorted. “Oh, yeah, this is going to be fun.”

  Two zombie cheerleaders scuffled past them with their pom-poms hanging low.

  Mel grinned. “I think we need to work on our shamble.”

  “Agreed,” Angie said. She pulled her veil over her face and then limp/shuffled towards the cupcake van, which had just pulled into its designated space near the amphitheater.

  Tate leaned out the driver’s window and let out a wolf whistle, which made Angie giggle.

  “There was absolutely nothing zombie sounding about that,” Mel said.

  “Sorry,” Angie said. “He’s just so cute.”

  Mel looked at Tate, with the knife through his skull dripping fake blood all over his collar and down his shirtfront. He’d put in a pair of fake rotten teeth, and his makeup made his eyes appear sunken and his features gaunt.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were drunk,” Mel said.

  “I’m worse than that,” Angie laughed as they approached the van. “I’m in love.”

  Mel studied her friend. Her eyes were bright, her smile wide, and even under her ghoulish foundation, she glowed. Yep, Angie had it bad.

  “Have you two set a date yet?” Mel asked as Tate stepped out of the van to join them.

  “Not yet,” Angie said. “But don’t you worry; as my maid of honor you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Hold the phone,” Tate said. “Mel can’t be your maid of honor. She’s my best man, well, woman. Yeah, that’s right. She’s my best wo-man.”

  “Um,” Mel hummed as she glanced between them. Once they’d become a couple, she had thought she’d never have to choose between them unless they broke up, a thought she refused to let enter her head for fear she’d never sleep again.

  “No, I have dibs on Mel,” Angie said. “She’s my best friend.”

  “She’s my best friend, too,” Tate protested. “I always figured when I tied the knot, she’d be at my side.”

  “Well, so did I,” Angie said.

  “Come to think of it, I thought you’d be there, too, as a groomsman, but that was before I fell in love with you.”

  “You mean before you noticed me.” Angie glowered. Gone were the joyous sparkles from her eyes, replaced with sizzling lasers of seriously not happy.

  “Yeah, I always figured the three of us would rock matching tuxes, and the bachelor party would be the stuff of legends, maybe Vegas. You know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” he said.

  “Not helping,” Mel whispered as she leaned towards Tate. He glanced at her and then at Angie, who looked like she might pull the axe out of her back and whack him on the head with it.

  “Who do you want to stand up for, Mel?” Angie asked. “Me or Tate?”

  “Oh, no.” Mel shook her head and raised her hands. “I’m Switzerland. I am not stepping into the middle of this. It will be an honor to stand up for either of you, but that’s for you two to decide, not me.”

  Angie glared at Tate and crossed her arms over her chest. He scowled back. Neither one of them looked like they were going to budge, until Oz poked his head out of the service window of the van and shouted, “Hey, how about a little help here?”

  Together, Tate and Angie stomped towards the van.

  “What’s going on with those two?” Marty asked as he joined her.

  “A stand-up standoff,” Mel said.

  “Huh?” Marty asked. “What the heck does that mean?”

  “It means, ‘Houston, we have a problem,’” Mel said.

  Three

  “Apollo 13,” Marty said.

  Mel looked at him.

  “What?” he asked. “I don’t watch movies? Anyway, it’s wrong.”

  “What’s wrong?” Mel asked.

  “The quote,” Marty said. “I was older than you are now in 1970 when Apollo 13 launched and what Jack Swigert, the pilot, really said was, ‘Houston, we’ve had a problem here.’”

  Mel tried to wrap her head around the fact that Marty had been almost forty in 1970. She couldn’t make it compute. The world events he’d seen and the things he’d done in his lifetime boggled her mind.

  “Wow,” she said, finally. “You’re pretty smart for an undead guy.”

  Marty shrugged. “Meh. You pick stuff up along the way, you know, if you’re paying attention.”

  “Nice outfit, princess.”

  Mel and Marty spun around to see Olivia Puckett standing there with her arms crossed over her chest, not an easy feat with a knife sticking out of her ribs, and a frown marring her zombified features. Like Mel, she had gone with the undead chef thing, which did not make Mel happy for a variety of reasons—not the least of which was that Olivia’s fake blood looked more real than Mel’s. Annoying.

  Mel glared. Olivia Puckett was the owner of Confections, a rival bakery, and had been the bane of Mel’s existence since the day she opened her shop. Their enmity had gotten pretty heated right up until Marty had decided to venture into the online dating world and had inadvertently hooked up with Olivia.

  Mel told herself that this was one of those the-universe-works-in-mysterious-ways sort of situations, but it still felt like a cosmic ass kicking, which was usually what she wanted to do to Olivia.

  The relationship was complicated for Mel because she was afraid if Marty were forced to choose between working at Fairy Tale Cupcakes and his girlfriend, he’d choose the girlfriend. Losing Marty to Olivia would be even worse than losing a bake-off, and so Mel was forced to play nice, but it was an effort.

  “I could say the same to you,” Mel said. She crossed her arms over her chest, mimicking Olivia’s stance. “You make an okay zombie chef.”

  “Okay?” Olivia bugged her eyes at her. “I am so much better than okay. And who are you to judge since you didn’t even bother to dress up.”

  “Why you—” Mel took two steps towards her nemesis, when she felt someone grab her arm and spin her around.

  “All rightie then, all kidding aside,” Marty wheezed, looking slightly panicked at the catfight that was about to ensue. “Mel, I think they need you at the cupcake van. Liv, how about you show me your setup? I’d like to see where my girl will be during the shindig.”

  “Your girl?” Olivia tittered and blushed. “Oh, Martin, you are a charmer.”

  It took everything Mel had to keep her eyes from rolling back into her head. Then again, given that she was at a zombie walk, it was a look that would work, and she could always say it was part of her shtick.

  She let her eyeballs roll. Sadly, the effect was wasted on Marty as he had linked arms with Olivia and was now strolling through the undead vendors over to her spot in the festivities. Mel was just relieved that it was not right next to theirs. She didn’t think Angie would manage her temper near as well as Mel had.

  She circled the van and glanced in the back door to see how things were going between Tate and Angie. Judging by the way Angie was keeping her axe, rather her back, to him, Mel assumed not well.

  “We need to put the eyeball cupcakes where people can see them,” Oz said. He was fussing with the display case beside the service window. Both Tate and Angie were ignoring him. “Hey! A little help here, please.”

  “Oh, I’d love to help but I’m sure Tate already has dibs on the eyeball cupcakes,” Angie said.

  “Now is that nice?” Tate asked.

  “Just as nice as you claiming my best friend for your own,” Angie said.

  Mel backed away from the truck. She was not going in there until they resolved their issue. She supposed it was lame of her to abandon Oz, but since they were fight
ing about her, she felt her presence would only make things worse.

  She spied their chalkboard sandwich board. Angie had doodled their zombie specialties on the board with prices. Mel lugged it out to the front of the van and propped it up where she figured it would be most visible.

  She wanted to wheel the coffin out front, too, as she figured it would give the undead a nice photo op and bring them in to buy cupcakes. She knew she wasn’t strong enough to carry the coffin herself, but she really didn’t want to get into the bride and groom scuffle again.

  She glanced up to see if there were any festival workers that she could ask for help. Then again, how would she know who was working the zombie walk if they were all dressed as zombies?

  “Yo, Mel, over here!”

  Mel turned at the sound of her name. She squinted at the crowd, trying to see who was calling her. It took her a few seconds to recognize the two zombies shambling towards her. Al DeLaura, who was dressed as a redneck zombie complete with John Deere cap and grubby white tank top, and Paulie DeLaura, who was wearing a torn suit with one sleeve empty, which made perfect sense when Mel realized he was carrying his “missing” limb in his other hand. Ew.

  “Al, Paulie,” she greeted them as she hugged them.

  Paulie patted her on the head with his fake arm, and she straightened her toque and frowned at him. “Stop that.”

  He grinned, showing some blacked-out teeth.

  “Do I look as awful as you two?” she asked.

  “No one looks as gruesome as me,” Al declared. “There’s a cash prize for best zombie outfit, and I’m betting on Bubba the redneck zombie to bring it home for me.”

  “Since you’re here, how about a favor?” Mel asked. The brothers nodded and Mel gestured for them to follow her.

  When they rounded the cupcake van and saw the coffin, they both went wide-eyed.

  “That’s bringing it to all new levels,” Paulie said in approval.

  “Agreed,” Al said. He ran his hand over the blue satin lining. “It’s so plush.”